7/18/16
Aloha ohana!!
It is strange to think
that before this week is over I will be able to say what I have been saying
over e-mail for the last two years, but this time actually in person, face to
face. Funny how time seems to slip away on us like that. It truly is one of the
strangest aspects of life. It is steady and sure, never changing... and yet it
can pass by in a moment or drag out for an eternity. It is very real and yet
very insignificant at the same time. It is always in your face, and yet
invisible at the same time. It is consistent in its incessant ticking away at
our hours and minutes here on earth and yet it seems to have no power over us.
Still despite all the contradictions surrounding time, it keeps on moving
forward and soon enough, it is gone.
With that backdrop to my
e-mail, one that is hard to write, I find myself (ironically enough) out of
time, in every way. I feel a bit like the prophets in the Book of Omni who have
much they would like to say but simply did not have the room (or in this case
the time) to say it. There are countless testimonies I would like to bear,
stories I would like to share and I'm sure a lot of aimless ramblings about
this or that, but seeing that this situation will not allow for any such
banter, I simply want to conclude my e-mail and my record here as a full-time
missionary in Hawaii by saying, Thank you!
Thank you to all of you
who for two years now have prayed for me, have supported me, have sent me
letters and e-mails of encouragement, testimony, trials and trust. Thank you
for the sum total of hours upon hours which you spent doing all of these things
and more for not just me and my companion, but for the people who we worked
with and for all the missionary work in the world by and large! Thank you for
your love and devotion to the gospel and your righteous example of Shiblon like
steadiness in living it. Thank you for simply living up to the high calling and
high potential for which you were born and for being an instruments in the
Lord's hand unto the salvation of MANY souls, I am one of those who has been
touched by that very work and vicariously there have been many many more. So
again, thank you!
Above all else however I
would like to pay a special devotion to my Father in Heaven for His justice,
love and mercy, as well as to my Savior Jesus Christ, who I now have come to
know and love perhaps more than any other person on this earth, and who I now
know, knows me better than does anyone else on this earth as well. I love them
and praise and worship them for their greatness and their goodness and the
support which they have given me over these past two years. Truly, this task,
even the work of Salvation, but more specifically my own personal mission here
in Hawaii, would have been absolutely IMPOSSIBLE were it not for the grace and
love and tender mercies, which have flown freely from the windows of Heaven. I
have changed perhaps more than I feel any missionary ever could change and
while there can and are and will be missionaries who are much MUCH better than
I was, there will perhaps never be one, who loves their mission and especially
these beautiful islands, as much as I do. I am going to miss it here more than
words can describe, however I feel confident and ready to face this next phase
of my life and know that I will be all the stronger for it.
Thank you again for all
that you have done and all that you continue to do! You are astounding! I love
you all and look forward to see and talking with you in much more depth and
personally very soon. Mahalo nui loa and aloha au ia oe!!! A hui hou aku.
Aloha 'oe,
-Elder Powell
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